This study was done to compare social cognition performance between patients with ALS and patients with bvFTD.
21 participants with ALS, 20 with bvFTD and 21 healthy controls who underwent a comprehensive cognitive battery, including the short version of the Mini-SEA. A post hoc analysis was conducted with the patients with ALS divided into two subgroups: 13 patients without cognitive impairment and 8 patients with cognitive impairment.
No significant difference was noted between participant groups in terms of the age, sex and education. ALS-total group and patients with bvFTD had similar disease durations. Patients with ALSci performed poorly when compared with controls with regard to the FERT (p<0.001), the faux pas (p<0.004) and the Mini-SEA (p<0.002) total scores. Moreover, patients with bvFTD performed poorly in comparison with controls in executive and social cognition tests. The performance of patients with ALSci was similar to that of patients with bvFTD, while the performance of patients with ALScn was similar to that of controls.
The findings of this study supported cognitive continuum between ALS and bvFTD and shed light on the cognitive heterogeneity of ALS, expanding its possible neuropsychological profiles.
Reference: https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/early/2020/09/21/jnnp-2020-324302
